Other Voices: Rain brings blessings for this new arrival

By BETH WEIR, SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, January 26, 2006

"You're going where?" people said in disbelief when I told them my husband and I were moving to Seattle in December. Then, as though it were an original thought, the speaker often added, "It rains all the time."

"So, I'll get wet," I began to answer not very nicely after the 50th rendition of this conversation, "and I'll have a real garden."

In reflecting on the move from North Carolina, I anticipated the pewter, rainy skies thanks to my "wellwishers," but there was also gloom at leaving long-standing friends. An added concern was that of finding my way in a new place after giving up a satisfying job. In the farewell functions that preceded our leaving, I'd steadfastly refused to accept I was retiring. It was a claim designed to shield me from my pending loss of status.

There was to be no finessing of that situation, I realized early. When we opened our bank account, the teller asked without malice: "Unemployed. Would that be with or without income?"

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"Ouch," I thought, tempted to venture into a Bill Clinton-like parsing. "It depends what you mean by income?" Then I said to myself, "Live with it, this is your new and chosen reality."

Since my reality also included the luxury of doing what I chose, I determined to become a Seattleite weather scoffer and set off walking in the quiet rain Jan. 4. My pleasure was interrupted when my right foot slipped on a wet grate and I tumbled gracelessly onto my left one. My ankle was irrefutably sprained.

Hemmed in the house with my injury, I watched the near-constant rain fall and filled my constrained hours researching the garden I'd like to develop. The drizzle felt reassuring in its constancy, pattering away as a backdrop to my sedentary exploration. It affirmed my expectation that Seattle is a wet place and, in a perverse way, offered a welcome to me as a newcomer.

The showers also curbed my impatience in getting on with life again, giving the sprain time to mend. All that water from the sky meant wet surfaces, and I was fearful of risking another insult to the one already experienced.

In addition, the amount of precipitation falling was a source of fascination for those North Carolina friends who called to find out how the "ankle was mending." Their cheerful and well-loved voices were indeed welcome, and I realized I'd not left them behind after all.

All in all, the rain has done me a number of favors: made me feel at home in a new city, helped me design a garden, supported the healing of an injury and joined me once more with my Southern friends. I just haven't been able to figure out how it can help losing status on "retirement."